This is the title page for the
book that Herman produced in 1992

Translated by Henry de Jong
and shared here on Middledom.com

One Sunday afternoon, I started reading my father’s “Memoirs” again. Again, I was impressed by how nice, yet matter-of-fact and detailed he describes his childhood in Terschelling. The thought occurred to me that more Terschellingers might enjoy this.

Father finished writing his reminiscences in 1972. That is now some 20 years ago. So, perhaps, the years 1987-1920 that he describes become real history after all, and it may well be that this little book gains importance as a result.

I am one of Hendrik de Jong’s five children who emigrated to Canada. Only my brother Jaap stayed behind in the Netherlands. Dad wrote his stories when he had been retired for several years. By now I am half-and-half retired myself, and to keep their dad working a bit anyway, my children gave me a computer on my sixtieth birthday. So, that’s come in extremely handy. Since I probably wouldn’t find a publisher for this booklet, I quickly set up my own little publishing company. Nice work typing, printing and binding! I found a method to bind the booklet so that it could not possibly fall apart. [Some of these were sent to Holland]

 There are very few Terschellingers in Canada. I myself only know two of them namely, Mrs Gutter-Cupido (very old) and one Matt Cupido who is a painter and has made a big name for himself here. [Henry recently unearthed a direct family connection with Matt, whose family settled in Alberta]

We, the Canadian descendants of the de Jong family, were all born in the province of Groningen, but still have a very strong bond with Terschelling. When we visit the old homeland, we almost never skip Terschelling because, on this beautiful island, we used to spend such wonderful holidays.

It is my sincere wish that you will appreciate this simple little book.

Herman de Jong
RR 1, Jordan Station, ON
Canada, LOR ISO